Fill These Spaces Up With Days
by too-much-like-Luna
Summary: Charles/Erik, after First Class. "At first, his absence is a sharp, burning pain in your chest. All things fade."


**Title Taken from Sleep, by Azure Ray  
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Fill These Spaces Up With Days

At first, his absence is a sharp, burning pain in your chest.

All things fade.

**1.**

When next you meet, you call him by a codename hastily thought up so long ago and he ignores the chair you sit in, which shines blatantly in the sun.

The sun was bright on the beach, too, you remember, sharp in your vision, blocked by the shadow of a helmet which obscured faces just as well as it hid thoughts.

You wish you were capable of bitterness.

Were you bitter, you could be angry, and with the anger you could accomplish so many things. You could bring purpose into your life again, could want to provide comfort to the children. You could hate him and relieve the burn in your chest.

**2.**

The children—those that are left—speak softly around you now, and their touches are hesitant and they spend a lot of time in the kitchen that you avoid because of phantom words and touches. You can't quite bring yourself to care as much as you would have before. They are soldiers now, and soldiers have a way of leaving.

You think Magneto may have affected your ideals more than you let show.

**3.**

What you find most ridiculous, later, when you lie in bed and observe the way the moonlight casts shadows over your useless legs, almost obscuring them from view, is how cordial you always are.

You should fight, you think, rage against this. Scream and throw things.

But how much could you throw, really, without the strength and support of your legs?

And what would be the point? It would not fix your legs, and it would not bring him back, and it would not change the future set out before you both.

You have chosen your path, and he has chosen his, and there can be no wandering. You can see, in the dark, the validity of his ideals. But morning always comes.

You do not waver in front of the children, of course. No matter what else, they can always rely on you to be certain. You have not yet lost that. It is your thoughts that worry you, almost-tempting images of fleeting ideas and what if? (What if I joined him, what if I reneged, what if I... what if he?)

You cannot control your thoughts, though you have tried, and you cannot control him, and you and he decided the inevitable long before (on a beach with missiles in the sky).

**4.**

Magneto has a full head of hair, and you are bald. Magneto has allies, as you have allies. Magneto has ideals, and yours clash against them.

Magneto has veiled pleas and apologies.

You think that if you joined him, together you could do anything. And that is why you can not do so. There is always opposing sides. If you abandoned your ideals and joined Magneto, you would be the victor. There could be no opposing you both. It is tempting, and yet...

Sometimes you think of Erik, still. The distinguish between the youth you knew and the enemy you know is not always clear when your mind is lax. Sometimes you focus on the metaphorical hole in your chest. Sometimes you remember pain, and you're not sure whether it's a memory of his initial absence, or a shot, and sometimes you wonder whether they are the same.

If you joined him, together you could do anything. But your roles were decided long ago (when a boy's mother was shot while another boy took solace in a girl even stranger than him against the silence of a house too large).

Sometimes you think of Erik, and you grieve his death.

**5.**

At first, you missed his mind the most. You missed its presence in the back of your head, and you missed the emotions flickering so strongly on the surface.

Then, you missed his touch. You missed his hands, and his kisses, and the way his body curled around you protectively as he slept. You missed the way he hesitated before initiating touch, the way he liked to feel you smile into a kiss. You missed the way his hand grasped yours as though he could not bear the mere idea of letting go.

Later, you missed his smile and eyes the most. You missed the rare glimpses of teeth, and you missed the times when he'd allow his emotions to show. But, most of all, when you allowed yourself to think of it, you missed the way he'd smile at you when you woke, your eyes still blurry with sleep.

At all times, you miss him.

But all things become more bearable.

All things fade.

(And if you use this as a mantra, he cannot hear your thoughts to comment on it.)


End file.
